GNU C Library 2.16 Brings Many Features (GLIBC)

[staalmannen]

I just managed to get php to build on my musl system:

https://github.com/staalmannen/sabotage/commit/920942bdac138fbdf384d5f4834935eb91c6f9d0

Next up should be to try to get the phoronix test suite running.

An issue that I still have is chainloading from my syslinux on my Arch root partition (/dev/sda1) to my "sabotage linux" partition (/dev/sda4). Somehow it does not get it and the syslinux info is not that informative unfortunately. The system does however run nicely in a chroot so some preliminary tests of musl libc with pts could probably be done already but ideally I should run a clean system without overhead from a host system.

[XorEaxEax]

I think that with glibc having adopted its new "development model", the need for the eglibc fork itself is going away.

From what I understand, Ulrich Drepper was perhaps the big reason for the fork, and now that he's gone maybe there's a big kumbaya happening

That said, despite what seems like a very hard person to work with I don't think one can doubt his technical ability. His 'what every programmer should know about memory' is the best source of information I've read on the subject.

A(nother?) musl user here...
Most alternate libc versions are smaller/lighter than glibc.
musl right now (0.9.2) has partial LSB ABI support, which is a subset of glibc ABI.

Thanks for the info, are there any other features you'd like to hightlight outside the realm of small memory footprint? (although small memory footprint certainly is a great feature, particularly since my interest stems from stuff I'm thinking of doing with my Raspberry Pi)

[curaga]

Another release without cortex-strings integrated. Seriously Ubuntu?


Re musl - it does cut the bloat, but it also cuts any performance optimizations (no ASM in musl, IIRC) as well as many used functions and behaviors that aren't quite standard, but are supported by glibc and used in the real world.

[Ibidem]

A(nother?) musl user here...
Most alternate libc versions are smaller/lighter than glibc.
musl right now (0.9.2) has partial LSB ABI support, which is a subset of glibc ABI. Most other alternate libcs don't have an officially stable ABI.
Most users build musl with gcc, but I'm aware of folks using pcc, tcc, and Clang; in fact, ellcc is currently migrating from "libecc" (based on netbsd libc) to musl, and I heard from Rich Pennigton (a week or two ago, on #musl) that a musl-based release should happen in a month or so.
Not sure how close to the timeline it will happen, but it "should be soon".

There's also a musl Gentoo port/overlay that's been started (mentioned on the musl mailinglist), though AFAICT it may not be usable or public yet.

[peppepz]

Ubuntu uses eglibc instead, so I wonder when these features make it into eglibc..

I think that with glibc having adopted its new "development model", the need for the eglibc fork itself is going away.

[XorEaxEax]

Thanks for the info!

[staalmannen]

Do you have any insight on the respective strengths of these c libs (other than most likely being smaller and having less baggage) ? It's always been a bit of a jungle for me thus resulting in me staying on the beaten path, maybe I'm missing out on something.

There is a comparison (with potential bias) table at:

http://www.etalabs.net/compare_libcs.html

For static linking, I think musl libc got lots of good things going for it. Especially that it is permissively licensed while still being far more complete than the Android bionic libc, so one does not have to worry about license conflicts in static binaries.
For the base system, having static linking is pretty good (that is how the musl libc "sabotage linux" does it).

[XorEaxEax]

I am now more curious about alternative libc-based distros. Musl libc seems to be moving along nicely and I think there is a gentoo variant based on uClibc.

Do you have any insight on the respective strengths of these c libs (other than most likely being smaller and having less baggage) ? It's always been a bit of a jungle for me thus resulting in me staying on the beaten path, maybe I'm missing out on something.

[Chewi]

personally, I am now more curious about alternative libc-based distros. Musl libc seems to be moving along nicely and I think there is a gentoo variant based on uClibc.

Thanks, I've used other libc's before but I hadn't heard of musl.

[staalmannen]

Ubuntu uses eglibc instead, so I wonder when these features make it into eglibc..

eglibc tries to stay pretty close to glibc so it should not take long.

personally, I am now more curious about alternative libc-based distros. Musl libc seems to be moving along nicely and I think there is a gentoo variant based on uClibc.